Gender Report Card on the International Criminal ... - YWCA Canada

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Develop a tool to provide the ASP and civil society with gender disaggregated data on victim
applicants. Despite the fact that the application form for victim participation specifically
requires the applicant to indicate his or her sex, the VPRS does not consistently include this
information as ‘basic data’. As a result, for more than one-quarter of the applications registered
by the VPRS between 30 August 2010 and 1 September 2011, the sex of the applicant is listed
as ‘unknown’. 2257 Identifying trends in the number of victims applying to participate in Court
proceedings is critical in order to understand any barriers faced by certain groups of victims and
for the purpose of targeting resources and activities towards underrepresented groups. It is also
critical to enhance the VPRS’s work, planning and internal evaluation regarding the accessibility
of the victim participation process to all ‘categories’ of victims.
In the next 12 months, steps should be taken to urgently address and strengthen the
institutional and personnel capacities of the VPRS including, but not limited to: conducting a
review of the senior management processes and oversight of the Section within the Division of
Court Services; conducting a skills audit of the Section staff; reviewing performance and roles;
introducing a stronger data collection function; and creating a more effective mechanism and
response strategy to address the large backlog of unprocessed victim application forms.
The Registrar should urgently initiate an audit to identify the reasons for the current backlog
of over 6,000 victims’ applications and instigate immediate remedies to address this problem.
In October 2010, there were 900 unprocessed victims’ applications. In the intervening period, no
action has been taken by the Division of Court Services to identify the cause of the backlog and
to take steps to immediately stem the growing number of unprocessed victims’ applications.
During 2012, the Division should develop strategies for long term changes within VPRS to avoid
a repetition of such limited functionality.
Ensure that the Court’s outreach strategies cover all aspects of the Court’s procedures and
include outreach to communities generally to explain the requirements for victim participation
and what it means to be a victim before the Court. Insufficient outreach or incomplete outreach
conducted by the Court through the VPRS and the PIDS can significantly and directly increase
security concerns for victims participating in ICC trials. 2258
Review the code of conduct for counsel, in particular to address issues concerning its scope, so
as to ensure it applies to all persons acting on behalf of accused persons or victims. Article 1 of
the Code of Professional Conduct for counsel, adopted by the ASP in December 2005, provides
that it only applies to ‘defence counsel, counsel acting for States, amici curiae and counsel or
legal representatives for victims and witnesses practising at the International Criminal Court’.
Trial Chamber III indeed found that the code does not apply to legal consultants working for a
defence team. 2259
2257 The information provided by email from the VPRS states that a total of 2,577 applications for victim participation were
registered by the VPRS during this time period. The gender of 658 applicants (or 25.53%) is listed as unknown.
2258 For instance, the common Legal Representative of Victims in The Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto, Henry Kiprono Kosgey
and Joshua Arap Sang indicated that many of her clients expressed that people in their communities did not understand the
difference between witnesses and victims and that as such they risk being seen as materially aiding the Prosecution’s case
against the three individuals. They expressed serious concerns about their security as a result (ICC-01/09-01/11-292, para 8).
2259 ICC-01/05-01/08-769.
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